Initial situation

The implementation of customer projects within the machinery and plant engineering sector has become more and more complex. Today, orders often have to be handled across several production sites. This requires an adjustment of previous procedures and introduces new requirements concerning short- and long-term scheduling and capacity planning within the global production network. Planning stability and transparency within project planning require a complex interplay of rough and detailed planning.

BearingPoint’s approach to international project planning helps:
• acceleration of scheduling processes within the sales department,
• improvement of delivery reliability,
• planning of international projects in consideration of global capacities on
a short- and long-term basis,
• preparation of feasible production plans, and
• implementation of these in a synchronized flow of materials.

The ability to complete projects across different locations, and the relevance of these projects for today’s industrial businesses, demonstrate that typical machinery and plant manufacturers export 2/3 of their goods to other countries, purchase half of their components, operate with a capacity utilization of over 90 percent, own production sites worldwide, and are challenged by a growing number of strong competitors from emerging markets.

Typical questions for companies, in which project management across production sites and businesses offers a higher potential for competitive advantage are:

Sales: “Given the technical complexity and the international labor division of the project, what is a realistic delivery date that can be offered to the customer?”

Logistics: “How do we coordinate material orders for international projects?”

Project controlling: “How do we achieve transparent budget and cost situations, including the same for local service elements (e.g. construction site installation, local production)?”

Our experiences

BearingPoint has extensive and longstanding project experience with international machinery and industrial manufacturers.
According to our experiences, the following competences determine the success of a make-to-order manufacturer:
• transparent delivery deadlines and capacities,
• fast and reliable delivery deadlines from the sales department,
• detailed planning based on coordinated production plans across all production sites,
• transparent budgets and costs, and
• the ability to simulate possible scenarios, particularly during the offer phase and before orders are confirmed.

Our solutions and your benefits

In order to meet the requirements of order processing and planning across locations, BearingPoint has developed an approach that is based on two solutions – the Loadplanner for rough preliminary planning, and the Project Optimizer for detailed planning and processing of orders.

The Loadplanning process enables the rough estimation of the operation schedule of a customer project, and determines key data and possible shortages of the overall project.

The results of this planning process help the sales department to set feasible time frames for appointments with the customer, by taking into account different possible scenarios. We then proceed with a detailed planning process across all production sites that determines and restricts resources and capacities.

The Project Optimizer supports your company during the final planning and optimization of offers and orders within your production network. This solution facilitates the ability to provide customers with reliable delivery deadlines at any time. The planning system sets these deadlines and uses them as a basis for further order processing.

In the course of this process, the specification of the project is gradually refined, and respective components and modules as well as production processes are maintained for the customer project.

When completed, individual assembly units and modules can be approved for planning across all production sites and included in particular local production planning, or procured alternatively.

The Project Optimizer provides a transparent view of the current availability situation and reserves production contingents for all sites involved.

This enables central control and increases reliability, even in cases of international labor division.

Adapt your planning processes to the new challenges of a globalized business world!

Our approach

Our team of consultants analyzes the processes of preliminary project planning, order scheduling, and capacity planning within project planning, in order to identify potential possibilities for improvement within your company. For this purpose, we evaluate your executive precision and scope of planning, and determine potential possibilities for optimization based on the existing IT systems and organizational structures.
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Our analysis approach, which has proven effective in practice, analyzes the efficiency of your offer and order planning. In the course of this process, we construct quick solutions and recommendations for action based on the BearingPoint service package.
In the next step, specific solutions are determined and prioritized. These are then divided into work packages and then implemented.

Our offer

• The introduction of ongoing global preliminary capacity planning
• The timely identification of potential capacity shortages no later than the offer phase
• Accelerated and flexible planning through a simplified key data model
• A closed planning cycle from rough to detailed planning